An InuYasha Valentine
by inukagome15
Summary: It's soon Valentine's Day and Kagome went home after a fight with Inuyasha. Inuyasha's mad at Miroku for a false alarm and it doesn't seem Valentine's Day for Kagome will go smoothly. Will everything go wrong or will she have a good Valentine's Day?
1. Chapter 1

**EDIT (12/21/11):** Woo boy... It's kind of hard to believe how long it's been since I posted this story. Since it has been so long, and my writing has changed _heaps_, I'm going to go through this with a fine-picked comb (not really) and edit so that it's a bit more in-line with my current writing style. The story's still the same but it'll hopefully look better!

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own _InuYasha_.**

* * *

**An InuYasha Valentine  
**

**Chapter 1**

* * *

Inuyasha was upset. And why was he upset? Because Kagome had gone home, that's why. The hanyou was sitting in his perch in his favorite tree outside Kaede's hut. He growled, thinking about what transpired in the morning.

**_Flashback_**_:_

**Kagome stood outside the hut while Inuyasha berated her for leaving.**

**"Why're you leaving?" Inuyasha asked angrily. "You barely got back here and now you're telling me you have to leave again?"**

**"I already told you, idiot!" Kagome snapped, her patience wearing thin. "I have to go back for a special holiday!"**

**"What holiday is this?" Inuyasha inquired suspiciously. "The holiday of special tests?"**

**"No, stupid! It's Valentine's Day!"**

**"Valentine's Day? What's that?"**

**Kagome explained impatiently, "It's a special holiday when friends, family, and lovers get together and give each other presents to tell each other how special the other one is." Kagome looked at Inuyasha hopefully as he was mulling over this new tidbit. Maybe he'd let her go now.**

**"No," Inuyasha said finally.**

**"WHAT?" Kagome shouted, unable to believe what she heard.**

**"You heard me," Inuyasha said hotly. "I said no."**

**"I can't believe you would make me do this!" Kagome fumed. She took a deep breath and shouted, "Osuwari!"**

**"AARGH!" The purple beaded necklace Inuyasha wore glowed brightly and pulled him to the ground with a resounding crash. Before Inuyasha could get up, Kagome had sped off to the well which connected her era to Inuyasha's. **

**_E_****_nd Flashback_**

"Stupid girl," Inuyasha mused. "Why'd she have to say that anyway?" His dog ears twitched.

'_Because you weren't going to let her go,_' his conscience said.

'_It's her fault anyway!_' Inuyasha argued. '_She barely came back for a few days before deciding to run off again!_'

'_For good reason,_' his conscience said, before becoming silent again.

"Inuyasha!" The hanyou's ears pricked up at the voice. "Aren't you going to come down?"

"Feh," he said. "What's it to you?"

The man who had called him sighed. He had a staff in his right hand which was covered with a glove; prayer beads covered the glove.

"There's a youkai," Miroku said. "It's strong so it might have a jewel shard."

Inuyasha hopped down and started pestering the monk with questions. "Really? Where is it?"

"How am I supposed to know where the jewel shard is?" Miroku asked. "I was simply wondering if you could get Kagome back here."

"No way am I going to get her!" Inuyasha shouted. "I'll just destroy the youkai myself."

Inuyasha ran off, leaving Miroku in his wake.

Miroku sighed and said, "He'll never learn will he? I'd better go before he destroys the jewel shard with the youkai."

At a much more leisurely pace, Miroku set off after the hanyou.

* * *

Her room looked like a maze with the amount of garbage, clothes, and bed sheets strewn about on the floor as she rummaged through her closet, looking for something.

"Aargh!" she said. She tied her black hair out of the way and rolled up her sleeves. Kagome was in a foul temper. "This. Is. All. Inuyasha's. Fault!" she grunted, accentuating each word with a grunt as she pulled out another box from her closet.

For the life of her she couldn't understand _why_ it was Inuyasha's fault but since she was angry at the hanyou she simply reasoned it was Inuyasha's fault.

"Need any help, dear?" Kagome's mother called, looking into the door at the mess in her daughter's room.

Kagome stepped out of the closet and smiled at her mother. "No, Mom. I'm fine, thanks."

"Oh, Kagome, your friends are at the door," Kagome's brother said. Sota looked at Kagome's room in amazement. "What're you doing? Spring cleaning?"

"They're at the door?" Kagome repeated. Sota nodded to affirm this. "Tell them I'll be right there."

"Yeah." Sota moved out of sight and went downstairs.

"Mom, you don't mind me leaving this until later, do you?" Kagome asked. She untied her hair and picked out a navy blue sweater along with a blue jeans.

"No, Kagome." Mrs. Higurashi smiled. "Go have some fun with your friends."

"Oh, and, Mom?" Kagome looked beseechingly at her. "Could you give me some money please?"

Mrs. Higurashi smiled and handed Kagome a wallet full of cash. "Here you go, Kagome! Get some presents for your friends in the feudal era."

"Thanks, Mom!"

Ten minutes later, Kagome hurried down the stairs clothed in a navy blue sweater and blue jeans. She had a bag hanging by her side where she had placed her wallet in.

"Kagome!" her friends called. Kagome grinned as she saw them wait for her by the stairs outside.

"Coming!" she called back.

Kagome walked with her friends to the mall. She smiled ruefully as she saw them chatting away.

'_So much has happened,_' she thought. '_After the jewel is complete and Naraku vanquished, will I ever be able to return to normal?_'

"Kagome? Are you feeling all right?" Eri asked.

"Yeah, did you recover from those dreadful toe cramps you had?" Yuka inquired.

'_Oh, Gramps!_' Kagome implored mentally. Outwardly she smiled nervously and said, "They're better, thanks! I'm just thinking about Valentine's Day."

"Oh, yeah," Yuka said, as if being reminded. "What about that boyfriend of yours? You know, Mister two-timing, possessiveness?"

"Oh, him!" Kagome laughed nervously. "He's doing fine." She waved a nonchalant hand. '_Why does he have to interfere HERE, too?_'

"No, I mean about Valentine's Day!" Yuka said. They had both stopped and were looking at Kagome.

"He doesn't celebrate it where he lives," Kagome said sadly, thinking of the feudal era. "He didn't even know what I was talking about!"

"But does he know now?" Eri persisted.

Kagome groaned silently. '_Can't they leave the subject alone?_' Exhaling heavily, she said, "Yeah, he kinda does."

"So?" they both said simultaneously.

"So what?" Kagome said nervously, sure of what was going to be asked next.

"Is he going to get you something?" Yuka asked impatiently.

"I doubt he'd even know what to get me," Kagome said. '_I know what Koga would get me… The head of Naraku._'

"You mean that you spend all that time together and he doesn't even know what you like?" Eri said disbelievingly.

'_Oh no,_' Kagome thought, horrified. '_I've said the wrong thing._' Searching for something to cover up her mistake, she said hurriedly, "Can we get to the mall? I've got some stuff I need to get."

Reluctantly, her two friends gave up the subject of Kagome's violent two-timing boyfriend and moved onto another subject Kagome hated: Hojo.

"Does he know yet?" Yuka said.

"Know what?"

"About your boyfriend!"

"Ah."

"You mean you haven't told him?" Eri said.

Kagome fidgeted. "I've been meaning to."

"Speaking of Hojo," Yuka said, "he's been looking pretty down lately."

"Why?" Kagome asked. In her mind's eye, she saw Hojo in a hole (literally).

"You've been missing school and all your diseases are infectious so he can't see you," Yuka explained. "Speaking of which, how's your battle with the head lice going?"

'_I'm gonna kill you, Gramps._' Repressing a twitch in her eye, she said, "Most of it is gone now."

"Ah! Here's the mall," Eri announced, pointing to a large building.

"Finally," Kagome muttered. Without another word, she rushed off to the mall to do some shopping.

Her two friends looked at each other.

"Do you think we should have asked her about her depression?" Yuka asked.

"Or about her psychological disorder that made her think she was a cow?" Eri asked.

They both looked at each other and said, "Nah." They followed their "insane" friend into the mall.

* * *

Inuyasha picked through the remains of the youkai he had just defeated. Despite Miroku's assurances that the youkai did have a jewel shard he had yet to find one. His silvery-white hair glistened in the sun as he used his fang, Tessaiga, to pick through another organ.

"Are you _sure_ this youkai had a Shikon jewel fragment?" Inuyasha asked for the tenth time.

"Pretty sure," Miroku said confidently.

"Why do I have such a hard time believing you?" Inuyasha muttered, shifting through the youkai's brain. "It got killed off pretty easily by my _Kaze no Kizu_."

Another tense ten minutes went by as Inuyasha finished his inspection and by then he was covered with blood and grime and thoroughly disgruntled. Miroku knew he was in trouble.

"Well, monk?" Inuyasha snapped at Miroku. "Where's the fragment?"

Miroku laughed. "Oh well, it must have been the wrong youkai!" He noticed the death glares Inuyasha was sending him. "Er…I'll be off now!" Miroku dashed off.

"Hey!" Inuyasha shouted after him. "I'm not finished with you yet!" The irate hanyou set off in mad pursuit after Miroku.


	2. Chapter 2

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own _InuYasha_.**

* * *

**Chapter 2**

* * *

Kagome added yet another shirt to her already overfilled shopping cart.

"Er, are you sure you aren't overdoing it a tad, Kagome?" Yuka asked, peering over the mound in Kagome's cart.

"No, not yet," Kagome said, rummaging through another rack full of pants. She didn't notice the looks her two friends shared.

"Who's all this stuff for anyway?" Eri inquired.

"My friends." Her friends both raised an eyebrow. Kagome explained hurriedly, "I've got other friends whom I met in the hospitals."

"Was that where you met your boyfriend?" Yuka said.

"Yeah, I think it was." Kagome idly looked over the price tag of a shirt, noting that it was too far out of her price range. On that note, all the clothes in the cart were too far out of her budget. Besides, would her friends even _wear_ these things? "On second thought, this stuff won't work at all. Better just return it."

Both her friends groaned.

"What?"

"Nothing," they said.

Kagome put all the merchandise back where it came from and they left the shop. As of yet, Kagome had a cat plushie for Sango, a box of lollipops for Shippo along with drawing paper and crayons, and a salve for Miroku that worked well on bruises. She was going to get the monk something a bit more thoughtful but had yet to find something and she couldn't find a thing for Inuyasha.

'_I could just get him a box of ramen,_' Kagome thought, sifting through some books. '_But we almost always eat ramen anyway so it doesn't make any sense._'

"Kagome?" Eri looked at the book her friend was holding. "Why are you holding a porn magazine?"

"I am?" Kagome looked at the book in her hand. She seemed to have picked it up accidently. "My mistake." She thought, '_If I did get that for Miroku he'd use up that salve pretty quickly. Should I just get him a shirt with "Pervert" written on it?_'

"You're holding that magazine again, Kagome," Eri pointed out.

'_I seem to think it's such a good present,_' Kagome thought. '_I'd better just sneak it into my cart._' When her friends were browsing over a magazine with muscular men in the pages and giggling uncontrollably, she snuck it in the cart and hid it in Shippo's drawing papers. She'd have to remember to take it out later or risk mentally scarring the kitsune.

'_Inuyasha's much more muscular than that,_' she thought absently, looking at a picture of the men her friends were giggling over. '_He'd knock those men flat without even batting an eyelash._' Aloud she said, "Can we go now?"

As her friends reluctantly left the magazine of muscular men, Kagome was fussing over what she would get Inuyasha. Unknowingly to Kagome, an incident that would happen in the next hour would make her wish that she had stayed in the feudal era and forgotten all about St. Valentine's Day.

* * *

Miroku sported a couple of large bruises on his face and bumps on his head, compliments of a furious Inuyasha who had caught up to him in only a couple of minutes. He was walking back to the village with a mildly calmed Inuyasha.

"I was sure it had a jewel fragment," Miroku insisted.

"Yeah, yeah." Inuyasha was looking off into the distance. "As if."

"You pain me, Inuyasha," he sighed.

"_I_ pain _you_?" Inuyasha asked, skeptical. "_You're_ a pain in the butt! 'There's a demon. It's strong so it might have a jewel shard,' " he mimicked in a passable imitation of Miroku's voice.

"It was a possibility."

"Exactly!"

Miroku seemed relieved that Inuyasha saw it his way. A punch to the head changed his mind.

"That thing was so weak you could have sucked it straight into your Kazanna without having to come to me!"

"How was I supposed to know? That's why I wanted you to get Kagome. Why has she gone back anyway?"

"Something about a special holiday."

"Mind repeating the name for me?"

Inuyasha screwed up his face, trying to remember "Something with a 'V'. Valentinny. Valenty. Velin." He scratched his head. Then he hit his fist with the palm of the other. "I got it! Valentine's Day."

"And what is this Valentine's Day?"

"Something to do with lovers, friends, and families giving each other presents."

"Did you and Kagome have a fight?"

"What's it to you if we did?" Inuyasha asked. He flinched remembering how Kagome had used the word.

"I'm saying that you could use this holiday to make up for the fight," Miroku explained patiently. He was rewarded by another punch to the head. "Ow! What'd you do that for?"

"I ain't her lover, if that's what you're insinuating," Inuyasha said nastily.

"Of course not," Miroku assured him. '_Of course you are, stupid. It's so obvious to everyone but you two._'

"Besides, what can I get her anyway?"

"A rose?" Miroku suggested. He regretted it the moment Inuyasha threw him another punch. He rubbed his sore head ruefully. "It was just a suggestion."

Inuyasha gave him a death glare. "Don't _ever_ suggest something like that again. Why don't you give Sango a rose with a grope and earn yourself a nice slap?"

"Now, now, I do nothing of the sort," Miroku protested.

Inuyasha snorted. "Yeah, right." He then stopped with an open mouth. "Don't tell me that's why you did it!"

"Did what?"

"Pretended the demon had a jewel shard!"

Miroku gave him a hurt look. "I may be a lecher but I'd never do that."

"I have my doubts," Inuyasha replied.

"And why would I pretend the demon had a jewel shard?"

Inuyasha sighed and talked like he would to a very slow child. "You pretended the demon had a shard because you had a fight with Sango and you wanted to have some fun with me."

"Now _that_ I would never do," Miroku said. "You'd kill me."

"True."

"Now, why don't you mull over my suggestion and come back to me on it later," Miroku said. "You can always give her a rose." A punch followed this remark. "Ow!"

* * *

'_I could always get him a new sword,_' Kagome thought dully. She stirred the straw in her drink slowly as her two friends chatted animatedly. They were in the food court. '_But since Valentine's Day is the day after tomorrow I can't get there fast enough to alert Totosai. Besides, didn't he take three days just to repair Tessaiga?_' She sighed. She was getting nowhere fast enough.

"Depression problems?" Eri commented sympathetically. She had noticed her friend's melancholy state.

"What?" Kagome jumped. Depression?

"Yeah, how is your depression going?" Yuka asked.

"I'm feeling way better!" Kagome said cheerily. She gave such a big smile that her two friends were spooked.

'_She's definitely not feeling better,_' they thought.

"Kagome!" a new voice made their heads swivel around to find its owner. The owner made himself known by taking Kagome's hands in his own and saying, "I'm so glad you're feeling better. Are you yourself again?"

"Hi, Hojo," Eri and Yuka said as one.

"Me myself again?" Kagome asked, confused.

"You thought you were a cow," Hojo said, concerned. He still hadn't let go of Kagome's hands.

'_Gramps, you are totally and utterly dead. Tomorrow's headlines will read "**Grandfather killed by Psychotic Teenager**"._' Kagome said weakly, "Uh, moo?"

Hojo let go of Kagome's hands, turned around, put his own hands on his head, groaned, and said dramatically, "Oh no!" He turned around once more and clasped Kagome's hands. Very theatrically, he said, "Kagome, I will stand by you no matter what happens. You can be assured of that!" Hojo drew Kagome in a tight hug and patted her back. "You can have all the psychological disorders you want, I will never leave you!"

"Uh, moo?" Kagome said helplessly.

Her two friends wore dumfounded expressions.

"Come, Kagome," Hojo said, he picked Kagome up and held her bridal style. "I will take you home!" Suddenly he said, "By the way, how's your malaria going?"

"You had malaria?" her two friends cried.

Hojo blinked at them. "You didn't know?"

"No, I heard she had toe cramps," Eri said.

"And I heard she had head lice," Yuka said.

"Moo?" Kagome didn't know what to do. "Uh, Hojo?" Hojo looked at her, concerned. "Could you – moo – put me – moo – down?" She had no idea how to act like a cow but hoped that mooing would be sufficient.

"I do not wish for you to strain yourself walking on all fours," Hojo said very clearly, enunciating each word loudly.

"I won't – moo," Kagome protested. "Please – moo, put me – moo – down. I have – moo – some stuff – moo – to get."

Hojo set her down slowly and Kagome picked up her bag. She set some money down on the counter and set off for the nearest shop. Her three friends followed her, hoping that she wouldn't draw much attention to them.

* * *

Meanwhile, Mrs. Higurashi and Sota were cleaning up the mess that was supposed to be Kagome's room.

"What was she doing anyway?" Sota asked.

"Giving her room an extreme makeover apparently," Mrs. Higurashi said. She picked a pile of clothes and gave them to Sota. "Hang this up in her closet, will you?"

Grunting was heard and then an old man appeared in Kagome's doorway. He looked inside and said, "Is Kagome back?"

"She was, Gramps," Sota said over the mound of clothes he was hanging up. "She's gone out with her friends."

"Oh no!" Gramps said, starting to dance around in agitation. Mrs. Higurashi and Sota stopped their work to look at him. "She absolutely can't go out! She has malaria!"

"You told the school she had malaria?" Sota asked. "Didn't you just tell them a few days ago she had a psychological disorder that made her think she was a cow?"

"I thought you told them she had bad toe cramps," Mrs. Higurashi said.

"She does?" Sota said.

Both mother and son looked accusingly at Gramps. He started to perspire.

"I'd better call them up, hadn't I?" he said.

"Now, now, that's enough of that," Kagome's mother said firmly. She took Gramps by the shoulders and led him into a room at the opposite of Kagome's. "From now on _I'll_ be making the excuses, is that clear?"

"But I was having so much fun!" Gramps complained. He started flailing his arms and dug his heels in.

"Too much fun apparently," Mrs. Higurashi murmured. She then said sternly, "Go into your room and don't come out. Sota? You can continue to hang up the clothes."

"Yes, Mom." Sota turned back to the mound and grabbed the nearest hanger.

* * *

"What _should_ I get her?" Inuyasha muttered. He was sitting in a tree near the Bone Eaters Well. He thought back to Miroku's suggestion and snorted. "A _rose_. Seriously, what's wrong with that lecher?" He hopped down from the tree and peered into the well. "What's taking her? She said she wouldn't be long."

In truth Kagome had said no such thing but Inuyasha imagined that she had as he hadn't paid much attention to anything she had said besides "Osuwari".

"I'd better get her." Inuyasha hopped into the well and was engulfed by a purple light. He floated through empty space and soon emerged into the same well. This time it was darker and a ladder led up out of the well. He ignored it and hopped up.

Inuyasha went up the few stairs and opened the door. There was no one there so he sped over to the house to hear Mrs. Higurashi berating Gramps. He hopped up to the window sill to see Sota attempting to sort through a mound of clothes.

"Hey," Inuyasha said. Sota jumped and turned around to see Inuyasha. The hanyou hopped in the room and promptly stepped into a fish bowl. "Where's Kagome?" His foot had gotten stuck in the bowl and he tried to pull it out.

"She went shopping with her friends," Sota answered. "Gramps went ballistic upon hearing that because he made up a story about how she had malaria when he told everyone a few days ago that he called in to the school with the story that she thinks she's a cow."

"Kagome's a cow?" Inuyasha asked, confused.

"Never mind," Sota said. "If you want to get her you'd better put a hat on." He looked at the two dog ears on Inuyasha's head.

"Will do," grunted Inuyasha. He spotted a green hat with a black front on Kagome's overcrowded dresser and waded through the piles of boxes and books on the floor to retrieve it. Putting the hat on his head, he jumped to the window sill and hopped down to the ground.

"Sota, who were you talking to?" Mrs. Higurashi came back in.

"Just Inuyasha," the boy said. "He's gone to the mall."

"I hope he doesn't get into any trouble," Kagome's mother said.

Sota looked guilty. "Do you think I did the wrong thing?"

"Well, it's too late now, isn't it? We'll just have to hope for the best."

"Yeah." Sota looked out at the window, hoping to see a red-clothed hanyou among the buildings in the distance. He only saw birds but he fancied he saw a splotch of red against one of the skyscrapers.

* * *

Kagome was browsing through the ramen section, having given up on finding anything that the hanyou might like. Hojo was anxiously hovering over her shoulder and her two friends were also paying extra attention.

She groaned. '_I really don't want to get Inuyasha ramen._' Kagome turned to Hojo and asked, "Do you know what boys like? I have a friend at the hospital and I want to get him something."

Hojo looked thoughtful and relieved that Kagome wasn't mooing anymore. "Have you tried the comics section?"

"He doesn't like comics. He's not a small boy," Kagome explained, noticing the looks her friends were giving her. "_Tell him_," was written all over their faces. "I'd say he's more the rough and tumble type."

"Laser guns?"

"No, something nice."

"You could get him a watch if he doesn't have one," Hojo supplied helpfully.

'_I doubt he'd be able to tell time._' "Anything else?"

"Um." Hojo seemed to be in deep thought and Kagome was steadfastly ignoring the looks her friends were shooting her. "A dog."

"A dog?" Kagome repeated bleakly. '_Good lord no. He'd think I'm insulting him._'

"Yes, a dog. Don't rough and tumble boys like dogs?"

"He's…allergic to fur," Kagome made up hurriedly. Besides, why would she get a dog – an expensive and hard-to-take-care-of animal – for someone she met in the hospital? And for a Valentine's present?

Hojo looked crestfallen. "Let's see then…"

Kagome took pity on the boy and told him, "It's all right. I'll think of something."

Eri whispered to Kagome, "He's not really allergic to fur, is he?"

"He is," Kagome insisted. "That's why he was in the hospital. He had a horrible reaction to being around a horse."

"Okay," Eri said, backing off after seeing the fire in Kagome's eyes.

'_I'll think of something soon,_' Kagome thought. '_I have one more day. Now I'd better go back before Inuyasha blows a gasket._' She suddenly sat down on the floor and rubbed her toes, groaning. "Oh no! I've got toe cramps!"

"Kagome!" Hojo bent down. "Are you all right?"

"Please take me home, Hojo," Kagome said, clutching her toes and screwing up her face as if she was in agony. "I can't walk!"

"You really should consider using those compresses I got you," Hojo said, picking her up. "I'll get you something tomorrow."

"Can you carry my bag?" Kagome asked Yuka.

Yuka nodded and picked up the one bag with Sango's, Miroku's, and Shippo's presents.

Hojo carried Kagome outside the mall until she saw a certain hanyou sniffing around the cars in the parking lot.

'_Oh no! Inuyasha!_' Kagome thought, panicking. '_I'd better think of something, fast._'

"Hojo?" she asked the boy, flashing him a brilliant smile. "Could you put me down? My cramps are subsiding. It'd do better with some ice, though."

"Certainly, Kagome." Hojo set her down and hurried into the mall again.

"Eri? Yuka?" Her friends looked at her. "Could you call a cab?"

"Do you have enough money for that?" Yuka asked.

"Yeah, I think so," Kagome said. She looked through her wallet. "Yes, I do. Just call one, will you? I'll be fine here." She could see Inuyasha starting to move towards her. Thank heavens he was wearing a hat.

"If you say so." Yuka set Kagome's shopping bag down and went with Eri to the corner curb to call a cab.

"Hey, Kagome!" Inuyasha ran to her. "Aren't you coming back now?" He cringed at the look Kagome gave him.

"In-u-ya-sha," Kagome said through clenched teeth. "What did I tell you about going out alone?"

Inuyasha glared at her defiantly. "I came to get you back! Fat lot of good it did me, seeing how ungrateful you are." He sniffed her suspiciously and asked, "Why do you smell like a boy?"

"Just carry me back," Kagome said, exasperated. She snuck a peek over to her friends, who were still trying to hail a cab. "I can't have my friends see you."

"Climb on." Inuyasha bent down and Kagome clambered onto his back with ease as she had done it before. Like the wind, Inuyasha sped off with Kagome clinging to his shoulders.

A few second later, Hojo came out of the mall with two packets of ice and Eri and Yuka had successfully hailed a cab. Now they went to the spot where they had left Kagome and looked around. No sign of the girl remained.

"Did you see where she went?" Hojo asked.

The girls shook their head.

"We're in trouble, aren't we?" he said. Both of them nodded. "Oh great. Now how are we going to tell this to Kagome's mother?"

Unbeknownst to them, Inuyasha and Kagome had already arrived at the shrine and leaped into the well as soon as Kagome put her shopping bag into her messy room amongst the debris scattered in it.

"How are your friends, dear?" Mrs. Higurashi asked.

"Call them up, will you, Mom? I left them without telling them where I'm going," Kagome said, ready to jump out of the window into an impatient Inuyasha's arms.

"All right." She looked out of the window as Kagome followed Inuyasha into the well house. Mrs. Higurashi sighed and said, "Doesn't look like she found anything for Inuyasha, does it?"

"Mom? Why does Kagome have a porn magazine in her shopping bag?" a bemused Sota asked.

* * *

**On reading this over again, I realize that porn magazines will not be available in any random store for someone underage to pick up. On the other hand, this is _INUYASHA_ we're talking about, and this manga has some pretty _crazy_ stuff going on. So I'll say it stands and leave it.**

**Thanks to _silver six, MissingInActi0n, Aya-Mitsuki, _and _Half-Demon Cali _for reviewing!  
**


	3. Chapter 3

**I still remember how much fun it was writing this chapter...**

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own _InuYasha_.**

* * *

**Chapter 3**

* * *

"Wow, Miroku, what happened to you?" Kagome asked. She looked in amazement at all of Miroku's bruises.

"Inuyasha happened," he replied and winced.

Kagome looked at Inuyasha dangerously.

He gulped and said, "He pretended a youkai had a sacred jewel shard."

"That's no reason to kill him!" Kagome shouted at the trembling hanyou.

"Quite the contrary, Kagome," Sango said. She was watching the conversation. "From what I heard, Miroku led Inuyasha to believe the youkai had a jewel shard and it turned out to be a false alarm."

"The thing was so weak it didn't even put up a fight," scoffed Inuyasha. He didn't notice the devilish gleam in Shippo's eyes.

The fox youkai looked at the monk's beaten up figure and sighed. "Still, Inuyasha, you didn't have to go so hard!" Inuyasha punched him in the head. Shippo clutched the swelling bump and wailed, "Inuyasha! Why'd you do that?"

"Osuwari!" Inuyasha came crashing down with a shout.

He looked up and yelled at Kagome, "Why'd you do that?"

"Because you picked on both Shippo and Miroku!" Kagome yelled back. "I can't leave you alone for five minutes, can I?"

"Who the hell said I needed a babysitter anyway?"

"Oh you are so annoying! Osuwari!" Another loud crash followed.

"It didn't work, did it?" Shippo asked Miroku.

"You're telling me?" Miroku cocked an eyebrow.

"At least you got your revenge and I mine," Shippo said.

"What revenge?" Miroku asked. More yelling and swearing came from Inuyasha and Kagome "osuwaried" him again. "Besides Kagome using that I don't see any revenge happening. I really can't blame Inuyasha for doing that anyway."

"What are you guys talking about?" Sango inquired suspiciously.

Shippo gave a yelp and said nervously, "Nothing! Nothing!"

Sango still eyed him, unconvinced, and gave Miroku the same look.

Kagome gave Inuyasha one last word as punishment and left the smoldering hanyou to nurse his bruised ego.

'_I can't believe I even **considered** getting him anything!_' Kagome fumed inwardly. '_That guy is just the rudest, selfish, pig-headed jerk on the planet!_'

She stormed off to the Goshinboku and sat down on a root. Leaning back against the tree, she reflected on the day's happenings. As her anger abated, she was able to think more rationally.

'_It's not Inuyasha's fault,_' her conscience said.

'_He didn't have to hit Miroku so hard,_' Kagome argued.

'_He was upset,_' her conscience replied. '_He didn't have anyone to tell him how to behave when he grew up._'

'_True._' Kagome felt guilty. '_But what can I get him?_'

Her conscience was silent.

She then thought to herself crossly, '_If I'm talking to myself, I must be crazy. My conscience can't answer questions that I don't know the answer to myself._'

Kagome sighed and stretched. She would go back to the present without letting Inuyasha know and see if she could get him anything. The last thing she needed was another fight with Inuyasha.

* * *

"Stupid girl," Inuyasha grumbled. He was back in his tree and didn't notice both Miroku and Shippo at the bottom.

"Ready?" Shippo whispered to Miroku.

'_I must be mad,_' Miroku thought as he nodded.

Shippo held a leaf to his head and with a pop transformed into a huge hairy youkai that would have looked absolutely terrifying if it hadn't been for Shippo's ridiculous tail and the huge eyes.

"Inuyasha!" Miroku shouted. "A youkai!"

"Yeah, yeah," he heard the hanyou mutter. "As if."

"I mean it!" Miroku made as if to ward the youkai off with his staff. "I can't hold it off!"

Inuyasha finally decided to peek down and saw a sight that would have made anybody laugh themselves to death. Miroku was apparently cowering down at the base of the tree Inuyasha was sitting in and a huge youkai with a tail that had the likeness of Shippo's tail and eyes that looked suspiciously like Shippo's pink ball form was attacking him.

Inuyasha hopped down and gave the youkai a bop on the head. It transformed back into a wailing Shippo.

"Waaaah!" Shippo bawled. He held his head, which was smarting. "Why'd you do that?"

"For trying to trick me!" Inuyasha yelled. He looked at Miroku, who really was cowering at the hanyou's glare. Inuyasha snapped his fingers and said, "_You_ put Miroku up to saying that the youkai had a jewel shard! It was probably you disguised but you abandoned the ruse when a _real_ youkai showed up."

"Hey! I resent that!" Shippo pouted. "_I'm_ a real youkai!"

Inuyasha snorted. "For what it's worth." Then his eyes narrowed and he barked, "Why'd you do that anyway? Speak up!"

"I thought you'd like to have some fun," Shippo whined. Inuyasha gave him another punch. "Owww! Stop it!"

"You deserve it." Inuyasha stalked off while both Miroku and Shippo looked at each other, relieved to have gotten off better than they could have.

"Stupid monk and stupid fox," Inuyasha grumbled. His ears perked up as he heard steps in the forest. He snuck close to the trees and caught Kagome's scent. "What's she doing here?" he murmured, catching a sneak peek at her between the trees. "It looks like she's heading back to the well."

Kagome was indeed heading back to the Bone Eater's Well but didn't notice a certain hanyou stalking her. She was still wondering what she should get Inuyasha. None of Hojo's suggestions had appealed to her as Inuyasha would think she was mocking him if she got him a dog and he couldn't tell time so it wouldn't be any use to get him a watch.

Kagome clutched her head and said, "I've got a headache. What can I get him? I don't know anyone who knows him well enough!" She stopped as she considered this remark and laughed sourly. "The fact of the matter is, even _I_ don't know him well enough. And I should!" she fumed. "We've been traveling together long enough to know each other's dislikes and likes!"

She continued on, muttering darkly and clutching her temples as she had indeed gotten a pounding headache.

When he heard Kagome muttering about getting him something, Inuyasha stopped dead in his tracks. He couldn't believe his ears. After all that had happened, she was trying to get him something? And she didn't even know him well enough?

"What've I done wrong?" Inuyasha said. He didn't know what he liked in particular either. He had never given it much thought and the only thing he knew he _did_ like was the Shikon Jewel and he doubted Kagome would give him it as it wasn't even completed and she only had a few shards since Naraku had the rest.

Now _he_ was also muttering darkly and continued to follow Kagome to the Bone Eater's Well.

* * *

"You did WHAT?" Sango shouted.

Miroku winced. "Please, Sango, not so loud," he begged. "My ears are still rather sore from Inuyasha's loud voice."

"It's no surprise that you came in completely beaten up if you led him on like that!" Sango scolded.

"I know."

Shippo was sucking his lollipop and lay in Miroku's lap. He stopped sucking for a moment and said, "We wanted to have a little fun so I dared Miroku that if he was a man he'd trick Inuyasha."

"And you took him for his word, Miroku," Sango said. "It's hardly Inuyasha's fault if you do stuff like that. And no one, _no one_, can be accused of not being a man if they refuse to trick Inuyasha. You know he's got a foul temper." She gave Shippo a glare. "I think you wanted to do something else than have a little fun. Well, Shippo?"

The kitsune squirmed under her gaze. "Maybe I did."

"First things first, both of you have to apologize to Inuyasha once he comes back," Sango said. "Then you should tell Kagome what you did. You know how many times she activated that necklace of his."

"Yes, ma'am," both of them said.

* * *

Kagome looked down into the Bone Eater's Well. She could remember the first time she had come out of it after being dragged into it by Mistress Centipede. It was the also the first time she had laid eyes on Inuyasha when he had been nailed to the Goshinboku.

"How long ago was that? Maybe two years ago?" Kagome wondered. She shook her head and said, "I have to go back. Valentine's Day is the day after tomorrow." Kagome stood up straight and clapped her hands together. "That's it! I'll go see what I can find today and go to class tomorrow. After that, if I still haven't found anything, I'll go again!" This thought cheered her up immensely but then she became depressed again. "And if I still haven't found him anything…" She sighed and continued on darkly, "…then sue me."

With these thoughts in mind, Kagome leaped into the well and into the modern era. After she was gone, Inuyasha came out of the cover of trees and sat down on the well, digesting what he had heard.

He sighed, too, and said, "What'll I give her?"

* * *

"I'm back!" Kagome called, opening up the doors to the well house. She stopped, petrified, as she saw her friends and Hojo at the door to the house. Kagome closed the doors in a hurry and sank down, heart pumping. '_They didn't see me, did they?_'

She could hear their voices getting closer and considered jumping into the well.

"Did you hear Kagome?" she could hear Eri asking.

"I could have sworn I heard her yell, 'I'm back!' " she could hear Yuka saying.

"It came from the well, right?" Hojo's voice was asking.

Then she heard Gramps voice. "No, no! That house is strictly off limits!" Kagome could hear her friends describing her voice and she crept to the well to sit on the edge, ready to leap in at a moment's notice. Then she heard Gramps saying, "I often hear things like that, too, around that spooky old house. It's called Bone Eater's Well and many legends surround it. One is that a beautiful girl was thrown into it by cruel bandits and she had promised to come back to the love of her life. It is said that one can still hear her voice calling out that she's back to the one she loves. I have also found out she sounds like Kagome."

'_Nice, Gramps!_' Kagome thought.

"So can we see Kagome?" Eri asked.

"No, I'm afraid not," Gramps said. "She thinks she's a cow again. Completely addled, you see. She also attacks anyone who goes inside the room."

"Wow, that doesn't sound like a cow in the least," Yuka said.

'_Gramps, I am really, really going to kill you,_' Kagome thought, gritting her teeth. '_You and I need to have a long talk!_'

"I know," she could hear Gramps saying. "I think she thinks she's a cull."

"Cull?" her friends asked, confused.

"A cow and a bull," Gramps explained. Kagome nearly fell into the well in shock but grasped the side just in time.

Kagome swore silently and cursed her grandfather.

"A cow and a bull," Hojo repeated slowly.

"Yes." Kagome could imagine her grandfather nodding solemnly.

"In that case…" her friends chorused. Their answer was completely the opposite of what Kagome and her grandfather had been expecting. "…we'll all go in together!"

"Wha – what?" Gramps said.

'_Oh no!_' Kagome thought. She looked around frantically for another exit. '_Aargh! How am I supposed to get out? Curse you, Gramps!_' She ran to the doors and peeked out through the crack. '_If I can get to my room before they make it up there, I'll be safe yet!_'

Once Kagome saw them enter the house, dragging Gramps with them, she opened the doors, closed them behind her with a bang, and ran to the tree closest to the roof. It would be a jump but Kagome was sure she could do it.

* * *

"Ah, Mrs. Higurashi," Hojo said. "I was wondering if we could see Kagome. She is in her room, isn't she?

Mrs. Higurashi gave Gramps a glance. "She's not feeling well, I'm afraid."

Eri and Yuka nodded. The latter said, "We know. That's why we want to see her."

Gramps started to dance around. "You can't! She's ill in the head! She thinks she's a cull!"

Sota, who was helping his mom bake something, looked at Gramps, puzzled, but decided not to say anything. Before Kagome's mother could say anything, a loud noise distracted all of them. It sounded like somebody had crashed onto the roof. There was a long silence.

"There, you see?" Gramps said finally. "Kagome is ill!"

Hojo ignored him and marched up the stairs. "Fear not, Kagome! I still love you!"

* * *

Kagome crept up the tree, grabbing each branch and pulling herself up. In this way, she shimmied up the tree in a few minutes and had to balance on a branch to get her breath. Without thinking, she looked down. Kagome nearly fell off and just clutched the branch, hugging it to herself.

'_Don't look down,_' Kagome thought. She pulled herself along the branch and prepared herself for the jump. It was about three yards to the roof. '_Just pretend it's only a one foot jump and you're an inch off the ground. Yeah, that's right. Just one inch off the ground._'

Kagome took her stance, and leaped off the branch… Endless seconds seemed to go by as the miko descended onto the roof. Falling, falling, falling, and landing, landing, landing, with a loud ungraceful crash. She ended up facedown on the roof and was stunned temporarily until she heard Hojo's declaration of love. Kagome scrambled across the roof and hopped into her window after opening it to land on the floor in her neat (surprise, surprise) room.

She was just in time as she heard Hojo's footsteps on the stairs and was about to lay down on her bed when she noted Buyo, her fat, lazy cat, was on it.

"Kagome!" Hojo declared. He opened the door and saw Kagome about to rip her protesting cat off her pillow. The girl promptly dropped the cat and went down to all fours.

"Moo!" Kagome said, hoping that she was acting the part right. She then remembered that she was also supposed to be attacking anybody who went into the room and charged at Hojo. Kagome was surprised as Hojo grabbed her shoulders, hefted her up, and hugged her tightly.

"Kagome!" Hojo said. "I will not leave you. I do not care how many psychological disorders you have!"

Briefly, noble music could have played as Hojo made this declaration with fire in his eyes. Kagome nearly died with embarrassment as she saw her puzzled mom and brother look at her. Her grandfather looked relieved but fell down on his butt when he saw the death glare his granddaughter sent him.

'_Forgive me, Hojo,_' Kagome thought. She brought her head down and butted it against his shoulder as she was not tall enough to hit his head. Once Hojo released her shoulders, she got ready to charge at all of them.

Gramps got the message once Kagome started to paw her right foot on the ground like a bull. He started flailing his arms and shouted, "Avast ye, mateys!" The distraction was sufficient as everyone looked at him. "Run! The bull is charging!"

They got the message and moved out of the way as a furiously blushing Kagome ran down the stairs and out the front door like a whirlwind. She rushed over to the tree she had climbed earlier and managed the same ascent in nine seconds flat. Laying down flat, her heart pounding in her ears, Kagome hoped the leaves in the tree would be enough to hide her. Thank the heavens her school uniform was partly green.

Her friends tore out the door after Kagome and started to call her name.

"Kagome!" Eri called. She looked in some bushes by the road.

"Kagome!" Yuka was looking in the well house.

"Kagome!" Hojo was looking under a rock.

"Erm, I don't think Kagome can fit under there," Sota said, passing by Hojo.

"Oh, right." Hojo replaced the rock and promptly started to look under a tree's roots. "Kagome?"

'_I don't fit under a tree root, either,_' Kagome thought, looking at Hojo's antics. '_Make something up, Gramps, please, so I can get going!_'

Surprisingly, it was as if he had heard her silent plea. "She must have gone," Gramps announced.

"Gone where?" her three friends asked.

"To her favorite place, where else?" Gramps laughed uproariously.

"It could be WacDonalds," Yuka said, thinking.

"It could be school," Hojo said.

'_Why would school be my favorite place?_' Kagome thought.

Eri hit her right fist with the palm of the other hand. "Ah-ha! I've got it!"

"Got what?" Yuka asked her friend.

"I know where she goes!"

"And where is it?"

"Oh, come on! You don't know? Remember what happened in first grade when she was rejected?"

"Kagome was rejected?" Hojo inquired.

"Never mind that," Yuka said impatiently, "Go on, Eri!"

"She went to the basement of our secret hiding place!"

'_Secret hiding place? What secret hiding place?_' Kagome wondered. She had forgotten nearly everything to do with her friends with everything going on in the feudal era.

"Come on, Hojo! Let's go!" Eri and Yuka grabbed the confused boy's sleeves and, with the speed of light, sped down the stairs to God knows where.

Once she was sure that her friends were gone, Kagome slid down the tree and sat down at its base.

"Kagome! There you are!" Mrs. Higurashi said. "Are you all right?"

"Never better, Mom," Kagome chirped, shaking.

"What a hiding place!" Sota said, looking up into the branches. "I'd never have seen you there."

"Is that how you got into your room?" Gramps inquired.

"No thanks to you!" Kagome snapped. "What the devil possessed you to make up such atrocious lies?"

Gramps cringed.

"If it weren't for you I'd never have been in this mess!" she hollered at him. "I had to pretend to be a cow – _pretend_ to be a cow, mind you – and I don't even know what a cow acts like beyond 'moo!' " She caught her breath here and then continued her rant. "Then you make up the crazy story that I think I'm a cull! What in heaven's name is a cull?"

"A cross between a cow and a bull," Gramps answered.

"That's not the point!"

"I had no other choice because they were going to see you."

"They did it anyway! Why couldn't you have told them I thought I was a tiger?"

"I can do that next time."

Mrs. Higurashi intervened here by setting a hand on Kagome's shoulder. "Now, now, no more fighting, please. I'm sure Gramps gets the point, Kagome. I have already discussed it with him and from now on I will be doing the phone calls to tell the school you're ill."

Kagome groaned and sunk down to her knees. "I was planning on going to class tomorrow but now I can't since I'll be the laughingstock of the whole school!"

"Give it some time," her mother advised. "It'll cool down before long. Now, there is the small matter of a porn magazine being in your bag."

Kagome swore silently and said, "Mom? That's for Miroku."

"Couldn't you have gotten him anything more thoughtful?"

"Believe me, Mom, he'll be in seventh heaven by the time he's finished with it." '_And covered with Sango's slaps._'

"Let's go in and all have a cup of tea," Mrs. Higurashi said, sighing.

"Oh, that reminds me. Can we talk?" Kagome asked. "I need to ask you something."

* * *

**Thanks to _Aya-Mitsuki_ and _Half-Demon-Cali_ for reviewing the last chapter!**


	4. Chapter 4

**One thing my past self never ever told you guys was how much trouble I had finding presents for Inuyasha and Kagome. I was just writing by the seat of my pants at that point in time. ...Not that I still do it.**

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own _InuYasha._**

* * *

**Chapter 4**

* * *

Inuyasha leaped from tree to tree, making only occasional sounds as his red outfit brushed against the leaves. He was looking for something to give Kagome but hadn't been able to think of anything.

'_I keep breaking those jars she keeps the shards in,_' he thought, jumping off one branch onto another. '_I could get her another._'

Inuyasha landed on the grass and started to run through the forest, looking at his surroundings in case anything struck his fancy. He abruptly stopped and fingered a couple of weirdly shaped leaves.

"She likes to fiddle around with medicine," he muttered. "I think this is a medicinal herb." He started running around and ripping out every single weirdly shaped plant he could find and bound them in a cloth he had in his shirt. "There, that'll be enough."

Inuyasha was about to run back when a certain branch caught his eye. It was a beautifully shaped branch that had a cluster of green leaves which adorned it.

"It's strong," Inuyasha commented, whipping it back and forth. A couple of leaves fluttered to the floor. "I could use this." He snapped the branch off and sat down at the trunk of the tree, examining it. "What's under bark?" The hanyou scratched some bark off with his claws. Something white started to show. "This'll do." He proceeded to scratch off the rest of the bark and soon held a gleaming white branch.

Inuyasha promptly hopped up into another tree and began the journey back to Kaede's hut.

* * *

"Well, Kagome? What is it?" Mrs. Higurashi asked. The two had sat down in the living room on the green sofa.

"It's Inuyasha, Mom," Kagome said, stretching out. "I can't figure out what to get him for Valentine's Day."

"Well, what does he like?"

"That's the problem!" Kagome groaned. "I don't know him well enough!" In answer to her mom's skeptical glare she added, "He never says anything about his family or about himself. It's not my fault." Then she said, "He likes ramen."

"You can't get him that, though," Mrs. Higurashi said. "Isn't he your normal, average teenage boy?"

"He's a hanyou, Mom," Kagome said.

"He seems normal enough," Mrs. Higurashi said. "Just get him what normal boys like."

"What _do_ normal boys like?"

"You know, girls, magazines, and rifles," Sota piped. He had been eavesdropping.

"Inuyasha isn't a pervert!" Kagome protested. "Besides, who said you could listen anyway?"

"Oh, all right." Sota turned around and muttered just loud enough for her to hear. "Just let the cat rip up your pillow and do his business on your bed."

"_What?!_" shrieked Kagome. She rushed upstairs as fast as she could.

"Buyo isn't really tearing up her bed is he?" Kagome's mom asked in a mild voice.

"For what's going up on there he could be," Sota said. Kagome's yells could be heard along with Gramps's cackling. "Seems Gramps has lost his mind and is writing on Kagome's walls."

"Oh dear." Mrs. Higurashi put a hand to her cheek. "I'd better go up there before Kagome murders him."

"You do that," Sota said as the mother started the ascent. He had a folded paper in his hand and was reading it through while smiling mischievously.

* * *

"Stop writing on my walls!" Kagome was yelling. Gramps had suddenly gone senile and was writing "moo" and "suck on this" on Kagome's bedroom walls. He was also drawing little funny shapes on the bedside table.

Gramps cackled and continued his mad drawing and scribbling. When Kagome had barged in, she had seen writing scribbled all over her walls and even her desk while the cat was innocently sitting on her pillow. Naturally, Kagome blew through the roof.

"What on EARTH are you doing?!" she shouted. Kagome rushed forward and attempted to wrench the marker Gramps was using out of his hand. He merely produced another one and added an odd pair of banana shapes to the funny scribbles. "Stop that, Gramps!"

Kagome was getting really, really getting tempted to strangle her senile grandfather but was saved from the deed by the appearance of her sane mother.

Mrs. Higurashi marched right in, plucked the extra marker from Gramps's hand and picked up a book that Gramps was going to scribble on to Kagome. The miko promptly used it to knock the old man out.

"I don't think that much force was necessary, Kagome," her mother said as Gramps collapsed.

"Yeah, but if she hadn't done it I think my room would've been next," Sota said, popping his head in the doorway.

Kagome dropped the book, picked up her thankfully unmarked bag, and went out of her room. "I'm leaving!" she called.

Sota looked at his unconscious grandfather. "Think we should check him into an asylum?"

"I think a hospital will do. Call them, will you?"

* * *

"Crazy old man!" Kagome fumed as she stopped by a curb. "Why'd he do that?" She stepped over the pavement onto the street. "He even interrupted my talk with Mom! Now how am I supposed to find something for Inuyasha? Seriously, girls, magazines, and rifles?" Kagome imagined Inuyasha shooting at Sesshomaru, his older brother. "Yeah, he'd have a field day with that. No more Tessaiga for him, that's for sure!"

Kagome made it to the mall in one piece without running into anyone she knew from school and escaped into the hustle and bustle of the mall crowd. She hesitantly approached a store that sold rifles on the third floor.

'_What the heck, I'll just get him one,_' she thought. Taking a deep breath and opening the doors, Higurashi Kagome stepped, for the first time in her young life, into a weapons store. Right away she saw that the prices were outrageously high but thought that she could afford a smaller gun.

Picking up a small, plain, black pistol she took a look at the price tag. It read ten thousand. Kagome opened her wallet and noted that she had enough money. She picked up the pistol and carried to the front desk.

"I'd like this, please," she said, smiling.

"Do you have a license?" asked the man. He didn't look very friendly and had scars crisscrossing his face. But then, none of the people in the shop looked very friendly.

"It's for a friend," Kagome explained.

"Does your friend have a license?"

"Um, no, I don't think so," Kagome said.

"No purchase without a license," he said.

'_So help me, you drove me to this. Forgive me, Lord, I'll have to make something up._' Kagome put up a finger, turned her back to the man, and opened her purse to take out a blank slip of paper. Clicking the pen in her hand, she wrote that she had permission to carry a gun. Signing it with what she hoped to be an important looking signature she handed it to the man. "There, turned out I had one after all!" Kagome smiled broadly, trying to mask her true feelings.

"Do you have a picture to go with it?" the man asked, trying to hide a smirk.

"Eh, no I don't." Kagome hoped fervently he didn't need a picture.

"Didn't you say it was for your friend?"

"So I did." Kagome scrambled to make up an excuse. "Even if I gave you his license, you still wouldn't sell it to me, would you?"

"No, I wouldn't."

Kagome breathed a sigh of relief.

"This thing is junk." The man tore it up. "You wrote it yourself just now. Don't you think that after managing this store for several years I'd know a punk kid when I see one?"

'_Punk kid? This man needs help._' Kagome looked down at her outfit. It seemed normal enough. She didn't have any belly rings or nose rings or even ear rings for that matter. Heck, she didn't even have a tongue ring. Not that she'd want one, anyway.

"Now git outta here before I call the police," the man said.

Kagome blushed furiously and backed out slowly, trying to ignore the stares that she was receiving from the other customers. A particularly ferocious looking man with an eye patch was staring at her in a way she did not like. Opening the doors, she hastily stepped out and closed that part of her life forever.

'_That idea blew up right in my face,_' Kagome thought. '_Better find something else._'

Walking among the bustle of the other shoppers, Kagome suddenly felt lonely. None of them had to go through what she went through almost every day. None of them had to escape a youkai that was intent on eating them every minute of the day and none of them had to deal with an obnoxious inu-hanyou, a lecherous monk, and a clingy kitsune every single second. She walked by almost every single shop in the mall on the third floor and then moved down to the second.

It was no small wonder that the gun store man had thought she was a punk kid. The third floor was absolutely crawling with them. It was a haven for kids who wanted their noses, belly buttons, tongues, foreheads, or ears pierced.

'_Mental note to self: don't go up there again._' Kagome shuddered. '_Was I the only normal person up there? I think even Inuyasha would have blended right in, dog ears and all._'

Kagome stopped by a window selling small toys and absently thought that she should get Shippo a water pistol, too. She opened the doors and immediately felt the change in atmosphere compared to the gun shop as the customers were all either hassled mothers dragging along bawling toddlers or kids Sota's age looking for a cool toy.

"Nice." Kagome picked out a nice blue water gun that not only squirted water gun but had the option to freeze it and squirt out icicles. "Pretty cheap, too."

After paying for the toy, Kagome continued her walk around the mall.

* * *

"Shippo?" Miroku was huddled behind some bushes and was in clear view of the Bone Eater's Well. "You sure about this?"

"_Nothing_ can go wrong here," Shippo assured him. "It's foolproof. Inuyasha sees Kagome…" Shippo put a leaf to his head and he promptly transformed into a very realistic Kagome with a pop and a smoke cloud. The only goof up was the tail. "…and Kagome rushes into his arms. He won't know what hit him!"

"That's the part I'm worried about," Miroku murmured. He shook his head. '_Why did I even get caught by Shippo? I'm going to be dead by the end of the day._' "You may want to fix your tail."

"Oops." With another pop, the tail vanished. "Okay, I'm going. When Inuyasha comes back from wherever he was, tell him to meet me, or Kagome, at the well."

"Just check that the tail doesn't come back, all right?" Miroku said wearily. "I don't want to get beaten up again."

"Will do." Shippo waited until Miroku had gone before running out to the well. He hopped inside and landed on the dirt floor. He then settled down against the wall. Now, to wait.

* * *

Inuyasha had a knife in one hand and the white stick he had peeled of its bark in another. He was attempting to carve something but so far, the stick had simply been cut free of its thin ends. Inuyasha had had better luck with the medicinal herbs he had found in the forest. After finding a nice box, he had put them inside neatly and wrapped it up with some cloth.

He was just about to attack the branch again when he heard Miroku calling for him.

'_What does he want now?_' Inuyasha wondered. He was on the roof of Kaede's hut and remained silent.

"Inuyasha!" Miroku called. "Are you here?"

"What does ye want?" Kaede asked, coming out. "Inuyasha is on the roof."

"Whaddya want, monk?" Inuyasha inquired rudely, jumping down. He had left the branch on the roof.

"Kagome's come back and wants to speak with you."

"Really."

"Yes, really."

"This wouldn't happen to be another trick, would it?" Inuyasha asked suspiciously.

Miroku smiled charmingly and said, "My dear fellow, since when have I ever tricked you?"

"Only about two other times that I can count along with stealing Kagome's bike and her half of the Shikon Jewel."

'_Hang on,_' Sango thought, peeking through the window. '_I know that look. That lecher is planning on tricking Inuyasha again. I don't believe him!_' Sango growled. '_I bet he didn't even apologize to him._'

"I deny that," Miroku chuckled.

A loud "bop" was heard as Inuyasha punched Miroku in the head. A lump started to swell.

"Now, now," Miroku said, rubbing his head. "I assure you that Kagome is indeed waiting for you at the well." He moved closer and whispered, "It concerns that holiday we talked about earlier, Inuyasha." The sly monk winked and continued, "Don't you want to give her anything?"

Inuyasha grabbed Miroku's navy blue robe and said in a menacing voice, "If this is another trick, Miroku, I'm going to hang you upside down in the Goshinboku and leave you there for the youkai."

Miroku gulped visibly and said, "Believe me when I say I am not aware of any trick, Inuyasha."

"You'd better not be lying, Miroku."

Another gulp. "I'm not."

Kaede was looking at him suspiciously.

"Then let's go." Inuyasha leapt up and sped off to the well, Miroku in his wake.

"Do you think I should follow him?" Sango asked.

"Perhaps. Make sure Inuyasha doesn't hit him too hard. I have an ill omen that it is another trick," Kaede said.

"What kind of omen is it?"

"My bowl broke." Kaede lifted the bowl and there was a large, fine crack running right down the side.

"Right. I saw you crack it yourself just a moment ago."

"Did I really? In any case, run after your friends."

"I'll do that before Inuyasha beats both Miroku and Shippo up." Sango rushed out, her little feline following her.

* * *

Kagome was on the second floor of the mall, about to go down to the first floor when something in a window caught her eye. She moved over to it and inspected the object. Then she thought about everything that Inuyasha seemed to like or hold dear.

'_That's it! I know what I'll get him!_' Kagome thought excitedly. She rushed into the shop, clutching her purse. Finally, her shopping was done.

On the escalator coming up were her three friends, Eri, Yuka, and Hojo. They were chatting animatedly about a certain subject that had eluded them. And without Kagome knowing, they walked right into the shop that she herself had gone into a moment ago.

* * *

**Thanks to _sesshylovr, Half-Demon Cali, sessysoneandonly, silver six, _and _The Disappearance_ for reviewing the last chapter!**


	5. Chapter 5

**I'm so annoyed at what I did to Shippo's and Miroku's characters...**

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own _InuYasha_.**

* * *

**Chapter 5**

* * *

Shippo was dozing in the well when he was awakened by the voices of both Inuyasha and Miroku. During his small, unplanned doze, he had slipped out of his disguise. He promptly transformed into Kagome with a small pop and made his tail disappear, too.

Shippo/Kagome grabbed a couple of vines and pulled himself/herself up. She/he dug his/her foot into a groove in the well's side and jumped up over the rim. Luckily, Inuyasha wasn't there to witness this impossible feat of strength on "Kagome's" part.

Inuyasha was, meanwhile, still arguing with Miroku. "I still have my doubts about that Kagome you're talking about."

The monk chuckled nervously and said, "Kagome really _is_ there."

"Oh, I don't doubt that the physical manifestation of Kagome is there, it's the Shippo part I'm worried about," Inuyasha said.

"Whatever do you mean?"

Inuyasha snarled, making Miroku flinch. "If you're not guilty you won't act like it."

"True," Miroku said cautiously, wondering where the hanyou was going with this.

"Then why are you acting guilty?"

"Um—" Miroku had to think to find an answer to that question. "Um, guilty conscience?"

"That makes no sense and you know it," Inuyasha grumbled coming into sight of the well. He stopped when he saw Kagome. "Kagome. So you _are_ here, after all."

"What do you mean, Inuyasha?" Shippo asked in a fluttery voice that sounded nothing like Kagome at all. In fact, it sounded like Kagome had gotten drunk…_very_ drunk.

"Err—" Inuyasha wasn't too sure if it really was Kagome since she sounded weird. He saw Miroku back off into the trees. Instinct warned him to be cautious. "You okay?"

"Of course I'm okay, Inuyasha," Kagome said in that fluttery voice.

Inuyasha's ears twitched. He went up to Kagome so they were standing very close together.

"Is Shippo behind you?" Inuyasha asked.

"N-no," he/she stuttered.

"Then why do you smell like him?"

"He…was…on my…clothes earlier?" Shippo made up, hoping that would work.

"Seriously?" Inuyasha looked doubtful. His nose twitched. "Now you _really_ smell like Shippo."

Without warning and to a hidden Miroku's alarm, Shippo's tail appeared. Without appearing as if he was making an effort, Shippo screwed up his brain trying to get his tail to vanish. It did so, with a loud pop.

'_Hmm?_' Inuyasha cocked his head slightly as one of his ears twitched. '_I **know** I heard something then._' He smirked while hiding it within his bangs' shadows. '_Okay, then Shippo, let's do it your way._'

Inuyasha put his arms around a surprised Shippo/Kagome and said softly, "I know you care, right, Kagome?"

Shippo nodded slowly, breathing in Inuyasha's scent and trying not to appear suspicious.

"So can you tell me what we argued about when we first met?" Inuyasha whispered quietly.

Shippo stiffened and his brain ran wildly all over the excuses he could give. "Er, we…argued…about…" '_Think, Shippo, think._' "…about…" Inuyasha waited patiently, a knowing look in his eyes. Shippo gulped, knowing he had been had but continued, stammering, "We argued about the jewel shards. Yup. We argued about the jewel shards." It was a safe bet as Inuyasha and Kagome argued about the shards and the way she was supposed to detect them pretty frequently.

Inuyasha made a blaring noise and said, "_Wrong._" He smirked. "Shippo, you can come out."

Not being able to hold his form anymore, Shippo promptly transformed and received a hefty punch on the head from Inuyasha.

"OW! What'd you do that for?!" the kitsune wailed. "And how'd you figure out I wasn't Kagome?!"

"Oh, stop playing innocent," Inuyasha snapped. He held up a hand and ticked off one finger. "One, I could tell you weren't Kagome because you reeked of your natural scent. There wasn't a whiff of Kagome on you." He put up a second finger. "Two, Kagome doesn't sound like that." He put up a third finger. "And three, you made a pop. That pretty much revealed everything."

"Oh, crud," Shippo said softly, waiting for the blows to fall.

"Oh, and, Miroku?" Inuyasha called. He walked over to the bush where the monk was hidden and he pulled the scared guy out. "Time to carry out my threat."

'_Oh boy,_' Miroku thought, closing his eyes. '_Someone help me!_'

* * *

Kagome paid for Inuyasha's present happily. She had finally found something! Nothing could go wrong. Or at least, that was what she thought until she heard her friend's voices.

"Hey, do you think we'll find anything for Kagome in here?" she heard Eri ask.

"Maybe. This store is filled to the brim with stuff," Hojo's voice replied.

"Eep!" Kagome hid behind a rack full of stuff. She noted the sales clerk's curious look and mouthed, "_Don't mind me_."

"Hey, do you know where I can find an item I've been looking for?" she heard Yuka ask the woman behind the counter. Kagome crept behind the rack she was hiding behind and hoped that they wouldn't notice anything out of the ordinary.

"It's in the other shop," the sales clerk replied to Yuka's question. She was eyeing Kagome curiously out of one eye.

"Is something wrong?" Eri had noticed the woman's stare at one area of the shop. "Kagome? Is that you?"

"Kagome?" Hojo's head swiveled around.

The miko cursed the sales clerk's curious stare and kept silent. She saw a blonde wig on a hat rack and reached over to put it over her own tresses.

'_Sunglasses,_' Kagome thought desperately. She saw a pair on another rack and grabbed them. They slipped down her nose but they did hide her gray eyes.

Thinking that she was adequately disguised, she got up from her crouched position. It had been hurting her legs.

"Hang on." Kagome stiffened as she heard her friends' voices whisper behind her.

"Excuse me, miss." She felt a hand on her shoulder and forced herself to turn slowly. Kagome found herself staring into Hojo's brown eyes. "You haven't seen a black-haired girl about your height and age wondering around here, have you?"

"Eh?" Kagome said in a high-pitched voice. Hojo and her two friends seemed taken aback at her queer voice. "Black-haired girl? Can't say I have."

'_Great, now I sound like Kaede!_' Kagome mentally reprimanded herself.

"Are you all right?" Hojo queried.

"Never been better!" Kagome trilled. "Why do you ask?"

"What's your name?" Eri asked her.

'_Oh, shit, she **had **to ask the question._' Kagome thought wildly. "Um, it's Saki." '_Is there a blonde-haired girl named Saki at the school?_'

"Saki. Are you new at our school?" Yuka inquired.

"Uh, yeah!"

"Funny, I didn't see you around," Eri said suspiciously.

'_Think, Higurashi, think._' "That's…because…I…transferred!"

"When?" the three chimed together.

"Just…recently," Kagome faltered. Her throat was starting to hurt her.

Her sunglasses slipped down her nose and nearly fell off before she shoved them up roughly. But not before they caught sight of her gray eyes.

"Hey, do you have gray eyes?" Yuka asked. "That's just like Kagome."

"Who's Kagome?" Kagome said weakly. "Are having gray eyes really that big of a deal?"

"No, but it is if they look like our friend's," Hojo said. "Now that I think about it, you look kinda familiar."

"Is that so?" Kagome said as crossly as she could with her high voice. "In any case, I am late for a very important appointment. Excuse me."

Without another word and breathing heavily, she shoved past her friends and once out of sight, shed her blonde wig and sunglasses. She dashed out the doors before they could react.

"That wasn't Saki, was it?" Yuka said.

"No, I didn't see any yellow." Eri was looking at the sales clerk who seemed rather upset. "Is something wrong?"

"I thought that wig and those sunglasses seemed familiar," the woman explained, "and now I know why! They belong to this store!"

"You mean they were stolen?"

"I suppose they were."

"No, they're here," Hojo said, coming out from behind a rack and clutching in his hands a wig and sunglasses.

"But doesn't that mean that it was _Kagome_ whom we talking to?" Yuka asked.

"It does." The three of them absorbed it. "But that means she's in danger!" they all realized.

The teens dashed through the doors after their "paranoid" friend. Meanwhile, the sales clerk was looking confused.

"What's going on?" she said, very belatedly.

* * *

Miroku was strung up in the Goshinboku upside down due to Inuyasha's earlier threat. Shippo, however, was not so lucky. Whereas Miroku had gotten off with only a few punches, Shippo was still getting hit.

"Inuyasha!" a new voice cut in. Inuyasha turned around and saw Sango approaching him. "Stop hitting him!"

"He deserves it," Inuyasha said flatly but he dropped the kitsune, who gratefully scampered away and hid behind Sango's skirt. Kirara sniffed him curiously

"They didn't apologize to you, did they?" Sango sighed, giving Miroku an exasperated look. The monk grinned, abashed.

"Apologize to me? I should say not!"

"Miroku. Shippo." Sango folded her arms and glared at Shippo. "What did I say earlier?"

"Um, we should apologize?" Shippo squeaked. "I'm…s-sorry, Inuyasha. Reeeaaally sorry."

Inuyasha snorted. "I doubt that."

"So, what trick did he pull off on you?" Sango inquired, curious.

"I can't say what he intended to do but I caught him before anything happened."

"What happened, though?"

"He transformed himself into Kagome. I caught his smell and then I'm suspecting his tail appeared. As for Miroku"—Inuyasha glared at the sheepish monk—"can't say what his part was in it other than to bring me here. Not to mention he tricked me into thinking that a youkai had a sacred jewel shard."

"You better bring him down."

"Why?"

"'Cause Kagome'll get you if you don't." It was a reasonable explanation.

"True, but it doesn't mean she has to know."

"Good point."

"Please, Inuyasha, get me down," Miroku pleaded.

"Why should I, lecher? Give me one good reason why!" Inuyasha snapped.

"I'll tell you why I tricked you along with Shippo," Miroku insisted. Inuyasha gave him a disbelieving look. "Just wait until Kagome gets here. Then I'll explain everything."

"You better not be lying." Inuyasha then added, "But I'm not getting you down now."

"Inuyasha!"

"Sorry." Inuyasha sat down at the base and crossed his legs. Folding his hands behind his head he said, "You'll have to wait."

Sango gave Miroku a helpless look and said, "Just be glad he didn't beat you up again."

"You wouldn't have let me anyway."

'_True, both for yours and Miroku's sake._' Sango sat down besides Inuyasha, Shippo still cowering behind her legs.

* * *

Kagome had made it out of the shop and was now on the way out of the mall. She made it to the first floor and was opening the doors when she heard her friends' voices call her name.

"Kagome!"

'_Aw, crud. Again?_' Kagome looked around and saw no hiding places besides a trash can, which she promptly dove into, ignoring the stares of other shoppers.

"Hey, where'd she go?" she heard Eri's voice. Kagome tried to breathe through her mouth and tried not to inhale the putrid odors from the garbage.

'_Great, there's no lid._' Kagome cautiously peeked over the side and saw that her friends were looking into different stores for her. She stood up, her legs covered with grime and other stuff she would rather not think about. Halfway out of the trash can, Kagome froze. Her eyes had caught sight of Yuka about to come out of the shop. She spotted the lid, picked it up, and covered her head with it as she ducked down. '_This stinks, both figuratively and literally. How'd I get into this mess? Oh yeah, Gramps had to call in and say I had a psychological disorder that made me think I was a cow._' Kagome heard her friend's voices and held her breath. '_Then he **had** to scribble all over my walls._'

"You know," Eri said, "I could have _sworn_ that I saw Kagome's figure here. Then she just vanished."

"Me, too," Yuka agreed. "Maybe she dove into a nearby store?"

"We've already checked all of them," Hojo said.

'_Was he really the guy who was looking for me under a rock?_' Kagome wondered.

"I thought you were looking at the ceiling," said Yuka.

'_Or, maybe not._'

"I was looking for her in a shirt," Hojo defended himself.

'_In a shirt?!_' Kagome stifled her giggles.

"Why were you looking for her in a shirt?!" Eri demanded.

"Because I thought she squeezed herself into it!"

"That makes no sense, Hojo, and you know it."

"It seemed like Kagome anyway," he muttered. "The bust certainly was hers."

'_Excuse me?!_' Kagome thought. Then she gagged at a particularly vile banana peel that had started to reek. '_Just go away!_'

"Hey, do you think she could be in a trash can?" Hojo asked.

"You know," Kagome heard Eri mutter to Yuka, "I do believe I've heard it all."

"In any case," Yuka said to the two, "I have this soda that needs to be thrown away. So if you want to look in a trash can, be my guest. Although, for the life of me, I can't understand why Kagome would want to hide herself in a trash can. It's…so…disgusting."

'_You and me both._' Kagome heard a clatter as a trash can was opened.

"Well, she's not in this one. Besides, Yuka, Kagome isn't herself and you know it," Hojo said.

"Too true."

'_What do you mean I'm not myself?_' Kagome thought, enraged. Then she remembered. '_Oh yeah. Gramps.'_

"What about this one?" she heard Hojo ask.

"Are you kidding me?" Eri said. "That one smells the worst! If I were Kagome I'd have passed out cold."

'_It does?_'

"But that's the trick. It's best to hide oneself in a place where no one will think to look," Hojo said wisely.

'_Would that explain the fact why you were looking for me under a rock, some tree roots, and then a shirt?_'

Eri voiced Kagome's thought. "So was that why you looked under a rock?"

"Yup."

"Under some tree roots?" This time it was Yuka.

"Yup."

"And then in a shirt?" This time it was Eri.

"Yup."

"But that makes no sense! The rock you were looking under was the size of ten pebbles and those tree roots could only have housed a cat!" And this time both girls were saying the same thing: "And there's no way Kagome could have fit herself in a shirt!"

"But that's the beauty of it." Kagome imagined Hojo grinning.

'_You're an idiot, Hojo, you know that?_' Kagome thought.

"The only way your theory makes sense is if Kagome did hide herself in a trash can. Oh well, here goes nothing," Yuka said.

'_Oh no! What do I do?_' Kagome thought frantically.

Her rescuer came in the form of a manly voice, "Excuse me but I need this trash can for dumping. It stinks to high heaven."

"Can you give me a moment?" Yuka requested.

"Sorry, but we'll be off schedule if I don't empty it now. Just wait a moment or you can deposit your trash in the truck."

'_A garbage truck?_' Kagome groaned mentally. '_This day just couldn't get any worse, could it? And to think that I still have Inuyasha's present with me._' She fingered the bag. '_He's going to wonder why it stinks of garbage._'

She felt the trash can move and realized with growing horror that she'd be deposited in a garbage truck. Kagome closed her eyes and waited for the inevitable.

'_Good-bye Mom, good-bye Sota, good-bye crazy Gramps,_' Kagome thought. '_The last you'll ever see of me is probably in a garbage dump as a flattened body._' She winced at the mental picture. '**_Not_**_ a pretty sight. Next headline is going to be, **"Flattened Teenage Girl Found in Garbage Dump" **_'

Kagome felt the trash can she was in shift to an upside down position and she automatically adjusted herself so that she wouldn't fall out immediately. All the garbage that had been in there with her fell out and with a sigh, she decided to let herself fall in the dump as well when she felt the can lower itself some more.

Kagome kept her eyes closed, waiting for the crusher to come and crush her along with the rest of the garbage. After a few minutes had passed and she felt the truck she was in move, she deemed it safe enough to open her eyes. What Kagome found herself in was a biodegradable truck. Everything in there could be biologically disposed of.

'_Hang on. What was written on that trash can I jumped in?_' Kagome thought back. "BIODEGRADABLE TRASH ONLY, PLEASE" came to mind. She mentally slapped herself. '_Well, duh, I won't get crushed. I should have noticed that the can I was in stunk more and it's no wonder considering that everything was rotting. I'm such an idiot._'

Kagome peeked over the side of the truck and waited for it to stop at a red traffic light. She promptly walked over all the junk and, sinking slightly, managed to climb over, clamber down the ladder on the side of the truck, and ignored the gaping mouth of the man who had saved her.

"Where'd you come from?" he asked, his mouth hanging open.

"Thanks for the save," Kagome said, her voice cracking slightly from not using it for so long and then abusing it by talking in a high pitched voice. "If they had opened that can I'd been ridiculed all over again. Then again," she continued, enjoying the man's dumbstruck expression, "if I'd been in a different can, it'd be a different story, wouldn't it? Lucky me," she finished cheerfully. "Now, I'll bid you adieu and a good day."

Kagome hopped down before the truck drove off and waved the still dumbstruck man good-bye. She stepped up onto the curb and attempted to clean herself.

"_So_ not my day," Kagome murmured, taking out a piece of gum which had plastered itself to her hair. "First Gramps doodles all over my walls, then I have to wear a wig and sunglasses and disguise my voice, and then I have to dive into a trash can that stinks to hell!" The last part was a loud shout which drew the stares of all the pedestrians.

"Don't look," she heard a mother whisper to a child.

Kagome rolled her eyes and tried to take off a banana peel that refused to come off. "Yup. This is _so_ my day." She smiled brilliantly at a young man who was staring at her. He gulped hurriedly and practically ran across the street when the "Walk" sign flashed.

'_What a day to tell my friends,_' he thought, hurrying to the mall at the other block.

'_What a day._' Kagome sighed and then proceeded to reach into her stocking for a particularly nasty apple core that seemed to hate her with a vengeance.

* * *

"Any explanation as to why he acted that way?" Mrs. Higurashi asked the doctor. Gramps was in an isolated room off the corridor. He was deemed too dangerous for the public rooms.

"Too much stress, apparently," the doctor said, looking at his sheet. "Care to explain why he started scribbling these on my clipboard?"

He showed Kagome's mom the same funny shapes that he had drawn on Kagome's bedside table.

Mrs. Higurashi sighed and shook her head.

"Hey, Mom?" she heard Sota call. "Gramps is chewing your keys."

* * *

**Thanks to _sesshylovr, inuyashaloves kagome4ever, Half-Demon Cali, silver six, _and _Michelle Weasley Fenton_ for reviewing the last chapter!**


	6. Chapter 6

**When I figured out what to get them, I was so _relieved_. And also terribly proud at having finished a story. Now I dust my hands of this story. If only my _other_ story didn't torment me so...  
**

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own _InuYasha_.**

* * *

**Chapter 6**

* * *

Kagome came home to an empty house. She had taken up the better part of an hour trying to get home while avoiding her friends and also cleansing her body of all the trash that had stuck itself onto her. Her dark muttering had also earned her many stares from other pedestrians and she was sure that her reputation was forever soiled. And all because Gramps couldn't keep his mouth shut!

"I'm home," Kagome said dully. Her voice echoed off the walls as she took off her shoes. "Where is everyone? Mom? Sota? Gramps?" She saw a note stuck to the fridge. It read: "Gone to take Gramps to the hospital. Have a nice St. Valentine's Day, sweetie. Love, Mom."

Kagome went upstairs to her room and tried not to gasp at all the markings that were still on her walls and furniture. It was going to take some getting used to. She went straight to her closet and took out some wrapping paper.

The next hour was spent as Kagome fervently wrapped all the presents she had gotten, with the exception of Inuyasha's. His, she spent a couple more hours over until the day was almost finished.

"There," Kagome said, satisfied. She put the last of the tape on the paper. "I think Inuyasha will be very happy." Putting all the wrapped presents in a plastic bag, which was then put into her backpack, she went downstairs to eat dinner.

* * *

"Inuyasha? What are you doing up there?" Sango called, curious. Her hanyou friend was sitting up on Kaede's roof and sounds could be heard. No answer came and she sighed. She had spent a lot of time trying to get his attention but nothing could get an answer out of him. "You know, Kagome could come back soon."

"So what?" Inuyasha finally replied.

"Hadn't you better get Miroku down?"

"Do it yourself," came the answer.

"You know I can't climb up that high."

"What about Kirara? Last time I checked she could fly."

"But not in such dense branches," Sango pleaded. "Please, Inuyasha, it's getting dark and the youkai will be coming out soon."

"That's what I intended," Inuyasha answered. "If you're that scared about your lover boy than go spend the night with him."

Sango blushed furiously and protested loudly, "He's _not_ my lover!"

A pause was heard and then Inuyasha said, "Really? Kagome keeps insinuating that you've got a thing for him."

"So that's where all the rumors come from," Sango muttered.

"Pardon?"

"Never mind." Sango went inside the hut in despair. Apparently, nothing she would say could change his mind.

"No luck, child?" Kaede asked, seeing Sango's face.

"No. 'Fraid not." Sango sat down.

"Inuyasha can be so stupid," Shippo commented. He cringed when he saw Sango give him the evil eye. "What?"

"It's your fault in the first place," Sango said. "It's your fault that Miroku is stuck in the tree."

'_Not exactly,_' Shippo thought, nodding meekly. '_It was his fault in the first place that I caught him._'

"Come, help me grind these herbs," Kaede said to Shippo.

"Okay." Shippo started to help the old miko with her herb grinding.

'_Something's not right,_' Sango thought, stroking a sleeping Kirara. '_There's no way Miroku would just listen to Shippo and risk his neck so something's up. But what?_'

* * *

"We're home!"

"Oh, Mom, Sota." Kagome turned back from her bowl of ramen. "How's Gramps?"

"Too much stress, apparently," Mrs. Higurashi said, hanging up her coat. "Have you managed to get those markings off your walls yet?"

"No," Kagome said. "It's apparently marked with a permanent marker." She sighed, closed her eyes, and continued, "We'll have to repaint the whole room and get new furniture."

"Have you tried the new stain remover?"

"Yes, Mom. Everything and nothing works." Kagome paused and noted a small mess in Mrs. Higurashi's hands. "Uh, what's that that you're holding?"

"My keys," she said, putting them on the kitchen table.

"What happened?"

"Gramps happened," Sota explained, untying his shoes. "He started chewing them and we couldn't get them out of his mouth."

"Gross." Kagome switched her attention back to her noodles. "I'll be going tomorrow, okay, Mom?"

"What's that smell?" Sota held his nose.

"I took a trip in a biological garbage truck." Kagome inspected her clothing. "I guess I forgot to take a shower."

"That and you forgot to clean this up." Mrs. Higurashi pointed to a dark stain on the chair.

"What the—?!" Kagome looked at the back of her skirt and saw a dark stain that was moist. "How come I didn't notice that before?"

"Just go take a bath, sweetie. I'll take care of your clothes," Mrs. Higurashi said gently.

"Gladly." Kagome sped up the stairs to the bathroom.

"Hey, where's Kagome's backpack?" Sota asked.

"It should be in her room," his mother said.

Sota climbed up after his sister and went into her room. He didn't have to look for long before he saw the huge backpack his sister nearly always carried over to the feudal era. Sota held in his hand the note which he had looked at earlier and opened the straps of the bag. He took a strip of tape and taped the note to the present that was labeled for Inuyasha.

"There," he whispered, smiling. "That'll blow my sister's socks off for sure." He snuck out past the bathroom door without his big sister noticing anything strange.

Kagome sighed happily. She was luxuriating in a hot, scented bath and was enjoying the feel of being clean. She sank into the water and closed her eyes, letting the bubbles out through her nose. She came up half a minute later for air and opened her eyes.

'_Weird, the water feels grimy,_' Kagome thought. She looked down to see the water pitch black and murky. Kagome jumped up a foot in the air and landed with a loud splash. The filthy water splashed onto the tile floor.

"Kagome?" she heard her mother call. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, Mom," Kagome sighed. She got up. '_Oh, great, now I have to clean this mess up._' She stepped onto the wet floor and went over to the towel rack. Kagome stood there, dripping wet, speechless. Then she snorted and said, "Oh, great, _now_ what am I supposed to do? Gramps has torn up all the towels and—" She paused and inspected them carefully. They were arranged into funny shapes and figurines. She continued, "What exactly did he do?" She added angrily, "Never mind what he did but how am I supposed to clean this mess up?!" Kagome glared at the tiny fabrics of towels that were left. "This stuff isn't even enough to rub myself down!"

* * *

10:00. That was what the clock read for Kagome. She was wide awake and couldn't sleep. Luckily, her mom had found some spare towels that were left alone and had given them to Kagome so she could clean up after herself. Unfortunately for Kagome, though, she was sleeping in a room and in a bed covered from ceiling to floor with unidentifiable scribbles.

'_I can scratch going to school tomorrow,_' Kagome thought, drawing her covers up to her nose. '_After what happened today, I'm not even sure if I want to go to school ever again! But still, what about graduating? Mom did say she'd say something on my behalf for the school along the lines of "Her grandfather was insane" but that still doesn't change the fact that I acted that way in front of my friends._' She sighed and briefly considered taking her mother's sleeping medication before deciding against it.

It was long after eleven before she could fall asleep, still thinking and worrying about her life.

* * *

**Kagome smiled when she saw Inuyasha's happy face upon seeing his present. Miroku had gotten his, too, and was currently reading his porn magazine with a steaming Sango refusing to even look at him.**

** Suddenly, Inuyasha leaned in closer. Kagome's heart started to beat madly and she found herself blushing furiously.**

** '_He's – he's not serious, is he?_' she thought frantically. **

**She couldn't breathe as they came closer and closer. She wasn't even aware of Sango's and Miroku's stares and that Shippo had ceased to play with his water pistol. Kagome was only aware of her body and Inuyasha's silver hair. When they were almost touching, a loud crash sounded in the background.**

"KAGOME!" a yell clouded her senses.

"What?! What?!" she yelped, jumping up a foot in the air.

Kagome found herself in her pink bed and in the bright daylight. She blinked the sunshine out her eyes and saw Sota looking at her curiously.

"How come you were blushing, Sis?" he asked straight out.

Kagome blushed even more madly. '_It was a dream?! But what did that mean?_' "I wasn't blushing, Sota!" she said out loud. "I was in a-a-a fire! Yeah, I was dreaming that I was in a fire. It was just really hot," she finished lamely.

"Uh-huh." Sota didn't believe a word she had said and Kagome knew it. "Anyway, Mom got a call from the hospital. They found out what had caused him to overstress and want us to come over."

"I'll be there." Kagome swung her legs over the side of the bed and waited for Sota to leave. Several minutes passed and they were still staring at each other. "Aren't you going to leave, Sota?"

"Oh, yeah." Sota closed the door behind him.

Kagome fell back onto her bed and hit her head on the wall. "Ow!" She clutched the back of her head in pain. "I'm such a klutz. Still…" She relaxed as she thought about that dream she had had. '_What was that about? It's not like I **love** Inuyasha, is it? I just think of him as a good friend, don't I?_'

Kagome sighed and got up once more. She went over to her dresser and opened up a drawer to find the clothes in there intact.

"Good thing he didn't touch that," Kagome said. "Now, what about my school uniforms?" Kagome opened another drawer and noticed, speechless, that there weren't any left. "What happened to all my uniforms?"

* * *

"We're here," Mrs. Higurashi said as they arrived at the hospital.

"Now I can give Gramps a piece of my mind," Kagome grumbled, adjusting her navy blue skirt. It matched perfectly with her green shirt.

"You know he wasn't himself," her mother said amiably. "Just give him a chance to explain himself."

"I'd like him to explain what happened to my school uniforms. They all disappeared—poof—into thin air."

"We'll find out what happened once we ask him."

"And what was up with those funny drawings anyway?"

"It could have been his idea of a practical joke," Sota said frankly.

"Last time I checked practical jokes didn't involve drawing on every piece of furniture in someone's room in a permanent marker," Kagome retorted.

Sota couldn't think of an answer to that.

When the trio went inside the hospital, they immediately took the elevator to the third floor and sat down in the waiting room.

"Higurashi?" A black-haired man in a doctor's outfit stood there with a clipboard.

"That would be us," Mrs. Higurashi said.

They got up and followed the doctor to the room where Gramps was in. He was, luckily, asleep.

"Well, what was the problem?" Mrs. Higurashi asked.

"Too much stress," the doctor said. "Apparently, he was also taking some pills and they didn't agree with him."

Kagome raised an eyebrow. "Didn't agree with him how?"

"Exactly how you saw him act," was the answer.

"Can it be cured?" Sota inquired. "I don't want to live in the same house with him if he keeps drawing on everything."

"We already have him on some pills and the pills that were the root of the problem have already been mostly expunged from his system," the doctor explained. "It shouldn't be very long before he's back to normal."

"Will he remember what happened?" Kagome questioned. "I kinda want to ask him what those funny shapes are on my bedside table."

"With any luck he should."

"The problem is," Kagome muttered under her breath, "is that we're not lucky. Or rather, _I'm_ not lucky."

"You can wait inside until he wakes up," the doctor said. He opened the door and gestured them inside.

Half an hour later, Gramps was wide awake and completely horrified at what he had done.

"I don't know what came over me," he said, shaking his whiskered old head. "I just had the sudden desire to draw and tear up the towels."

"About that," Kagome started, "what happened to my school uniforms?"

Gramps gave her a blank look and replied, "Oh, that. I believe I threw them into the garbage. They were too green for my taste."

"Too. Green. For. Your. Taste?" Kagome repeated through gritted teeth. Her eyebrow twitched. "In case you didn't notice, I'm fresh out of uniforms! And what was up with those drawings on my bedside table? My whole room looks like graffiti!"

"Those were cows."

"Cows?" Kagome remembered those funny banana shapes he had added. "Ah, and those were supposed to be the horns. Riiiight." She sighed and said, "Your drawing sucks."

"You're joking, right?"

"Sadly, no."

"But I went to an art school!" Gramps was agitated now. "I did everything right! I went to art school and got top grades!"

Kagome, her mother, and her brother all shared glances and had the same thought, '_This is going to take a while._'

* * *

"I'm going back now, Mom!" Kagome called. She ran up to her room, grabbed the yellow bag, and ran down the stairs. "Bye!"

"Hold on, Kagome." Mrs. Higurashi stepped out of the kitchen. "Are you sure you want to go like that?"

Kagome looked down at her outfit. She was wearing sneakers, blue jeans, and a navy blue shirt covered by a green sweater. Nothing wrong with that.

"I'm fine, Mom. I don't have my school uniform anyway," Kagome said. "See ya later, Sota!" She added, "Say 'hi' to Gramps for me when he comes out of the hospital."

After Kagome had left Sota asked his mother, "_Is_ Gramps coming out of the hospital?"

"Of course he is. Why do you ask?"

Sota shrugged. "Just wondering because it would be a little quieter around here. What about school for Kagome? She can't go back the way it is."

"I'll take care of that."

* * *

Kagome made it to the well house and jumped into the Bone Eater's Well without a second's thought.

Her thoughts went back to that dream she had earlier. '_That was freaky. Do I really think of Inuyasha in that way? There's no way! He's so selfish, arrogant, loud, and about a dozen other things!_' She paused as she considered that thought. '_Well, that may be true but isn't he also caring for others? He's saved me so many times and other people, too! Not to mention he's got a sweet side to him as well._' Kagome landed in the well in the feudal era. Same well, just five hundred years earlier. '_I just can't figure him out. One moment he's a big arrogant jerk and the next he's a sweet guy with feelings._'

Kagome grabbed the vines and hefted herself up. This time, her bag wasn't that heavy so she didn't have to worry about the weight. Digging her feet into every available groove there was and using the vines to pull her weight up, she managed to make it to the top very quickly.

With a final grunt, she pulled herself over the side and got herself a firsthand view of the feudal era in spring. Kagome put one foot out and then the next.

"I'm back!" she yelled to the surroundings.

No one answered.

'_Weird. I would have thought Inuyasha would've been here at least. That guy's always impatient for me to come back._'

The miko sighed as she realized that she would have to make it to Kaede's hut alone and without any help from her hanyou friend.

* * *

"You could have gotten me down ages ago you know," Miroku complained.

He had spent the chilly night in the Goshinboku and about half the day while Inuyasha waited for Kagome to come back. Fortunately for him, no youkai had decided to come and take a nibble.

"You're just lucky Kagome came back, monk," was all Inuyasha said. "Why you decided to go and trick me along with Shippo is something I haven't figured out yet."

"I told you that I'd tell you later after Kagome comes back," Miroku reminded him. "Let's just wait for Kagome to get here."

"She's going to be heading for Kaede's hut," Inuyasha said. "Sango'll be happy about you being on your own two feet."

'_Somehow, I don't think that'll be the case after I tell him why I was in the business with Shippo,_' Miroku thought, following Inuyasha. '_In fact, I have a feeling I'll be hanging in the Goshinboku again before long._'

* * *

"Hi, Sango, hi, Shippo," Kagome greeted her friends. She sat down on the floor. "Where are Inuyasha and Miroku?"

"Inuyasha should be getting Miroku down by now," Sango said.

"What…exactly happened?" Kagome asked.

"Shippo dressed up as you," Sango explained, "trying to trick Inuyasha again. Needless to say, Inuyasha saw right through it and, well, beat Shippo up and tied Miroku up like a chicken to hang up in the Goshinboku."

"Why that! I'm going to kill him!"

"Now, now," Sango warned. "He did it with good reason. Shippo really went the whole nine yards by trying to dupe him into thinking that he was really you. Just ask him for the details. Speaking of which, he's here now."

Inuyasha and Miroku opened the door flap thingy and entered the small hut.

"Hi, Inuyasha," Shippo squeaked. He hid behind Kagome.

Inuyasha ignored him and instead addressed Kagome. "Why'd you change clothes?"

"Long story." Kagome got a devilish gleam in her eye. "Why'd you hang Miroku in the Goshinboku?"

Inuyasha gulped. '_Aw, crud._' He said out loud, "The two idiots tried to trick me into thinking that Shippo was you." He snorted. "Shippo made you sound all funny." He closed his eyes and waited for the bomb to fall. Namely, Kagome's "osuwari".

"Inuyasha."

Inuyasha waited for the pain.

"Good boy."

He opened his eyes disbelievingly. "You're not mad?"

"'Course not. If you say you had your reasons, well, then you had your reasons. Just apologize to Miroku, all right?"

Inuyasha grumbled, "He should be apologizing to _me_." Under Kagome's warning look he winced and added hurriedly, "All right, all right. I'm sorry, Miroku. There, happy?" He sat down, folded his arms inside his sleeves, and looked away, scowling.

Miroku said down, too, folded his legs under him, and said, "Now I should explain why I did what I did. See, Shippo caught me doing what I shouldn't have done."

"Hang on, Miroku! I – you – I-I order that you don't say anything!" Shippo demanded from behind Kagome. "If you do, I'll reveal it!"

"I was going to anyway, Shippo."

"Oh."

Inuyasha snorted again. Shippo sent a glare his way.

"Now," Miroku continued, "Sango and Kagome were taking a bath."

"And you decided to sneak in on them, Shippo caught you, and you worked out a deal. The End," Inuyasha interrupted.

"Eh, not quite." Miroku cleared his throat and went on, "I admit, I was curious about going"—Sango snorted—"okay, I was _very_ curious about peeking. But I tried to refrain myself. It was a loud noise that made me think you might need help."

"Oh how chivalrous of you," Sango murmured.

"Why, thank you." Miroku paused and frowned. "That was sarcasm, was it not?"

"Obviously, smarty."

"Er, on with the story. Anyway, after hearing this loud noise, I crept over to the springs and peered over a rock to see you two bathing and chatting. I couldn't see anything around but I slipped on a rock and fell."

"Well, that explains what Sango and I heard," Kagome broke in.

"In any case, after I fell over backwards, I lay there for a moment when Shippo appeared on the rock. He got a devilish gleam in his eye and grinned."

"For good reason," Shippo murmured.

Miroku chuckled nervously and said, "Shippo offered me a deal. He was going to keep quiet about me peeking and in return, I had to go with him on any tricks or jokes he'd play, no matter the consequences."

"I _knew_ something was up," Sango said. "It just wasn't like you to do such rash actions."

"I thought you'd lost any and all of the brain cells that you possessed," Inuyasha put in.

"Uh, thanks, I think."

"You know what brain cells are?" Kagome asked Inuyasha. In reply to his raised eyebrow she added hastily, "Never mind. Forget I even said that."

"You do know, Miroku, that you could have just come to us anytime?" Sango said sweetly.

"Really?" Miroku couldn't believe his ears.

"Yes. It wouldn't have been half as painful then what Inuyasha put you through," Sango said.

"Oh."

"Yes. All we would have done would have been hitting you with a boulder," Sango counted off her fingers, "dunking you under the hottest water in the springs and holding you under for as long as possible, and tying you up in a tree," she finished.

"Hey! That was my idea!"

"You don't mind, do you?"

"Eh…guess not."

"So, what about you, Kagome?" Sango asked her friend.

"Oh, about Miroku?" Kagome thought about it. "I'd probably do the same things except for the hanging up in a tree part. I'd just keep chucking boulders at him."

Miroku gulped and smiled nervously. "Um, no hard feelings, right?"

"Yup. No hard feelings." Kagome nodded, smiling brightly.

'_I'm in trouble,_' Miroku thought.

"Anyway, did you guys know that today was Valentine's Day?" Kagome inquired.

Inuyasha's eyes jerked open at this.

"It's a special holiday in my time where people give each other presents to tell the other one how special they are."

Miroku raised an eyebrow. "And?"

"Well"—Kagome flushed—"I just got some stuff for you guys." She patted her backpack. "I hope you guys like it."

"If it's from you, Kagome, of course," Sango said, smiling.

Kagome smiled back and opened the straps. She took out a queerly shaped package and handed it to Sango.

"Hope you like it."

Sango stared wordlessly at it and then finally said, "How am I supposed to open this?"

"Put your fingers under the tape," Kagome instructed, showing her how.

"Ah." Sango did the rest and soon, an adorable cat plushie rested in her lap. "It's so cute! Thank you, Kagome!"

Kagome rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly and said, "I kinda got Kirara some treats." She held out a can with cat treats in it for Kirara and opened it with a can opener she had taken. Kirara took the treats from her hand and started to eat them. "Shippo, here's yours."

"Oh, thanks, Kagome!" Shippo opened the box of lollipops, took one out, and started to suck it. "These papers and crayons are so cool!" He then picked up the water pistol and said, "What's this do?"

"Put water in it and it can shoot it out by freezing it or just shooting it. And, uh, Miroku, I hope you like this." Kagome gave Miroku the salve.

" 'Perfect for irritated skin'," Miroku read off it. He then noted Kagome's wink towards Sango and understood that it was for Sango's slaps. "How…very considerate of you, Kagome."

"Oh, yeah, there's this, too." Kagome nonchalantly handed over the magazine.

"What the—?!" Miroku's eyes almost bugged out as he saw the magazine. "Uh, yowch."

Sango got a sour look on her face when she saw the pictures and looked at Kagome to see her shrug.

"There wasn't anything better," Kagome said simply. Her eyes then rested on Inuyasha and she seemed uncomfortable. "Well, I had to think for a while about you, Inuyasha. I couldn't think of anything to get you."

'_I know, I heard you,_' Inuyasha thought.

"I really had to probe through the whole mall and even tried to get a pistol."

"A pistol?" Inuyasha eyed Shippo's new toy. "I hope you didn't try to get me one of those."

"Not quite but I guess it was for the better that it didn't work." Kagome gave a half-hearted smile. "Anyway," she continued shyly, "I hope you like this." Inuyasha took the carefully wrapped present, but before he could open it, Kagome added, "Can we go outside for this?"

"All right."

When Kagome and Inuyasha were safely seated in a tree, Inuyasha started to open his present. Slowly, the wrapping paper became undone and Inuyasha gazed at his present. It was a picture album. When he opened it, he saw pictures that had been taken by Kagome's weird contraption. As he turned the pages, different pictures were seen. Some were of the group simply having fun, others were of him and Kagome. Still others were of Inuyasha chasing Shippo all over the place because of some trick that the kitsune had played on the older hanyou.

"Do you…like it?" Kagome asked. She didn't know what Inuyasha's silence meant. "I don't really know what you like and…well…I just thought that you'd like some pictures of all of us."

"Thanks, Kagome," Inuyasha finally said. "This is really nice." He took a breath and said simply, "I've got something for you, too."

"You do?"

"Miroku suggested it," he grumbled. "Wait here, all right?"

Inuyasha jumped off and ran into the woods. Kagome stared after him and then looked at the photo album he had left behind. A smile tugged at her lips when she thought about Inuyasha's reaction. A couple minutes passed before Inuyasha came back clutching something white in his hands.

"Erm." Inuyasha hopped up onto the branch with Kagome and cleared his throat. "I made this for you."

Kagome looked at the white stick in his hands. It could no longer be called a stick as it was shaped to look like a bow. It had been strung and made ready for war.

"Did you make that?"

Inuyasha nodded. "It took some time but I managed." He shuffled around in his robe for a moment before coming out with a box-shaped package. "This is for you, too."

Kagome unwrapped the knot and lifted up the lid to find plants in the box.

"They're medicinal herbs. I know how you like to fiddle around medicine so I just picked those while looking for the branch."

'_Do I tell him that these aren't medicinal herbs but rather **poisonous** herbs? Nah, maybe not._' "Em, thanks, Inuyasha."

Inuyasha rifled through the photo album again and stopped at a picture where the group was simply having fun at a river.

"You know," he said in a low voice.

Kagome froze in the action of covering up the poisonous plants.

"I never actually had real friends. And, well, this really means a lot."

Kagome relaxed a little.

Inuyasha frowned and continued, "And, Kagome…um…I've…well…you've never thought badly of me, have you? We did kind of start out fighting a lot."

"Well, yeah, we did but…no, I've never thought badly of you." Kagome could tell that this was leading up to something big. It didn't help that she had the faint feeling several people were spying on them.

"I've – I've never thought badly of you either," Inuyasha went on in a low voice. "It's just, well…complicated."

'_What's he saying?_' Kagome's heart was threatening to burst out of her chest.

"And…um…it's…just…that you know about Kikyou, right?"

'_Where's he going with this?_'

"I didn't think…no…I _swore_ that I wouldn't feel that way about another mortal ever again," Inuyasha said all at once. "It was just…too painful."

Kagome's breath caught in her throat and she was having trouble seeing.

"So, when I began feeling those same feelings again, I tried pushing them away. I didn't want to feel them again. For the fear of…for the fear of not being accepted again…and…for being betrayed." Inuyasha was really thinking this through, a feat that was previously thought to be impossible for the thick-headed hanyou.

'_What feelings is he talking about?_' Kagome thought, scarcely daring to believe it. '_Hatred? No, that doesn't make sense. Revulsion? Wait, that's basically the same thing so it doesn't make sense. Love? But that can't be, can it?_'

"Kagome? You okay?" Inuyasha was looking at her, concerned. "You kinda spaced out there for a moment."

"Huh? Oh yeah, I'm all right. Just, continue, all right?"

"Anyway…" Inuyasha was looking very nervous and kept fidgeting. "I don't really know how to say this, but, lately, I've been connecting these feelings I've been having to the ones I had before. I couldn't ignore them anymore, so, I just had to face them. It's just…" He took a deep breath, turned to Kagome, and stared right into her gray eyes. "…I…really…_like_ you, Kagome."

Kagome's breath caught in her throat as she realized what Inuyasha had just said. Sure, it hadn't been "love" but it was close enough, due to the way Inuyasha had stressed the word.

"Kagome?" Inuyasha was waiting for her reaction.

She smiled and said softly, "I…didn't really expect that from you, Inuyasha. But, I like you, too."

Inuyasha briefed through his present briefly, still embarrassed about what he'd said earlier. He then stopped as his hand went through the wrapping paper he had used. Kagome noticed that he was clutching a paper in his hands.

He looked at it, confused, and then said quietly, "Hey, Kagome? What's this about?"

"Huh?" Kagome looked over at the note and nearly exploded when she saw who had written it and what was in it. "SOTA! Why that little! I'm going to kill him!"

The note said, very blandly, that Kagome had been dreaming about Inuyasha whenever she had been over there and if Inuyasha would please knock some sense into her before she put the whole house on fire with her blushing. Kagome had the sneaky feeling that Sota had planned it well before St. Valentine's, meaning to get the two of them together.

"Don't really know what he means by 'Talk to her before the house explodes with her red face'," Inuyasha read off it.

Before Kagome could reply, loud laughing was heard.

"What the—?!" Inuyasha looked around for the source. He found it in another tree, where Miroku, Sango, and Shippo were laughing themselves to death. "_You!_ How long have you been sitting there?"

"Long enough," Sango gasped, rubbing the tears from her eyes. "That was…really touching, you two. Quite frankly, I didn't know if Inuyasha would ever say it. And that note, what does it say?"

"None of your business! And as for eavesdropping, I'm going to kill you!" Inuyasha jumped from his tree to the others' and started to chase them around through the branches.

Kagome was furious for one brief moment at both her brother and her friends before relaxing and smiling about it. Sure, they had listened to their "private" discussion and her brother had written an embarrassing note to Inuyasha but it had been worth it. She had heard Inuyasha's confession, even if it wasn't a full confession in the way she would have liked it. But then, knowing the hanyou's personality, that would have been very rare. Still, she wished Sota could have time traveled with her because that boy was in _so_ much trouble…

"Inuyasha?" Kagome called out.

Her friend stopped chasing them for one brief moment to look at her.

"Don't be too hard on them."

As the sounds of the scuffle continued, Kagome leaned back against the trunk and thought, '_At least this turned out to be all right. You know, St. Valentine's Day isn't a bad holiday after all. But still…_' She looked down at the dizzying drop. '_…how am I supposed to get down?_'

* * *

Meanwhile, in the Higurashi resident, Gramps picked up the phone to call up the school. He looked around fervently before noting that no one was there to see him enjoy his daily call.

"Hello? Yes?" Gramps talked into the phone. "I regret to inform you that Kagome has come down with another case of the head lice. Hmm? No, I'm afraid she can't come in tomorrow."

He didn't notice Kagome's little brother sneaking a look at him. Nor did he see the exasperated look crossing over his face.

"Mom!" he yelled. "Gramps is calling up the school!"

* * *

**As a note, Inuyasha's present looks more like a journal where you can keep your photos, not a photo album.**

**Thanks to _Half-Demon Cali_ and _sessysoneandonly_ for reviewing the last chapter!**


End file.
